Government   Communities Secretary, Hazel Blears, today announced that Entec - a leading environmental and planning consultancy - have been asked to draw up new planning rules that will ensure the system is doing more to encourage the use…

As has long been known, Britain is highly unlikely to meet its renewables targets of 20% set by the EU for 2020.  So how do our civil service advise ministers to sort it out?  "Wriggle out of it"!  A briefing leaked to the Guardian has said…

While on the subject of government targets, there are according to police figures on-the-spot fines for crimes such as being drunk and disorderly, destroying property and shoplifting are being issued at a rate of one every three minutes…

Government   The Ministry of Defence has imposed a ban on members of the armed forces using modern technology to communicate about their experiences. Soldiers, sailors and other members of the armed forces will be barred from blogging…

Government   The government has unveiled new proposals to use innovative design to tackle crime. Four UK designers will join the Design and Technology Alliance and work with the Home Office to make products harder to steal. Home Office…

Home Information Packs.  A completely useless, expensive pieces of government bureaucracy.  And now it seems they were devised, in part, by a man with a clear conflicts of interest - according to a National Audit Office study.  It had…

Government   The government has announced a crackdown on advertising by about 1,000 gambling websites operating from overseas. Regulations being laid in Parliament on Thursday mean that when the Gambling Act 2005 comes into force on…

Private Funding Initiatives (PFIs) - the best way to finance a major project at the same time as keeping the risk away from the taxpayer.  In theory.  The latest example of where the taxpayer always gets shafted in the end is the new build…

Government   Taxpayers may be landed with a multi-million pound bill because of a Government decision to rebuild schools using private money, according to MPs. Half the Government's flagship £45 billion drive to modernise school buildings…

One of David Cameron's big ideas, perhaps the biggest in his "sociocentric paradigm", is to rely on the voluntary sector to deliver more of the services currently provided by government. It seems, though, that this is less a big idea, and…

There is a very amusing story in the Times today about the Health & Safety nutters.  It concerns Lancashire County Council and its efforts to improve road safety. The council has tried to install some electronic speed indicators which are…

Cc: Iain Dale, Andrew Mitchell, George Osborne and anyone else interested in really helping the world's poorest, rather than token gestures and photo-ops Read this, and then ask yourself whether the lessons you learnt from a brief trip to…